Short Courses

Dr. Giuseppe Cammarata

Giuseppe Cammarata is a senior engineer with several years of international research and consulting experience.
He obtained a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering at the Politecnico di Torino (Italy) and a Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering from the same institute in collaboration with ETH Zurich (Switzerland) where he worked as Visiting Scientist. His thesis was shortlisted by the ISRM for “Rocha Medal” award in 2008.
Following his post-doctoral research on hydro-mechanical coupling in rock masses, he gained professional experience in rock and geotechnical engineering for civil, oil & gas and mining projects working for companies in Italy (Geodata, Eni E&P) and Canada (Golder Associates and WorleyParsons) before joining Plaxis, the leading provider of geotechnical software, based in Delft (The Netherlands) and recently acquired by Bentley Systems Inc..
He is author and co-author of several scientific and technical papers and has served as reviewer for “Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering” journal.

Dr. Christophe Vibert

Christophe VIBERT is Master of Science, and took his in Ph.D. in Engineering Geology in 1987. He has been working two years as a post-doctoral fellow at the Disaster Prevention Research Institute of Kyoto University, Japan). In 1989, he joined COYNE et BELLIER, Consulting Engineers, France, (renamed TRACTEBEL in 2008). He has been working on a large number of projects of tunnels (water tunnels, rail- road tunnels, mining) and is presently Expert by STUCKY, Switzerland, especially dedicated to rock mechanics design of hydropower plants or water transfer schemes (large dams foundation, pressure tunnels and large caverns for underground power plants). He has been a member of the French Rock Mechanics Committee from 1996 to 2018, and its Vice-President from 2012 to 2018. He is now affiliated to the Swiss Geotechnical Society and an active member of the Design Methodology Commission of the ISRM. He is also a member of the ICOLD (International Committee for Large Dams).

Professor Wulf Schubert

Professor Wulf Schubert received his Dipl.-Ing. degree from the Graz University of Technology, and the PhD degree from the Mining University in Leoben. He joined Geoconsult in 1980, were he worked on tunnelling and rock engineering projects around the world as designer, supervisor and consultant.
In 1992 he became full Professor for Rock Mechanics and Tunnelling at the Graz University of Technology. His research focuses on rock mass characterization, all aspects of tunnelling in poor and faulted ground, as well as monitoring data interpretation. He retired from University in 2018.
Wulf Schubert is known in the community for promoting up to date design methods in rock engineering. He has published more than 25Schu0 papers, and supervised around 100 MSc students and 20 PhD students. In cooperation with Leoben University he has established a very successful post graduate course in tunnelling.
He served as ISRM Vice President at Large for Europe from 1999 to 2003, and has been engaged in several working groups and commissions. He chaired the ISRM EUROCK Symposia in 2004 and 2015 in Salzburg, Austria.
Since 2008 Wulf Schubert is president of the Austrian Society for Geomechanics. He is founding partner in the consulting company 3G Gruppe Geotechnik Graz.

A. Fransson

Dr. Åsa Fransson holds a master’s degree in civil engineering and a PhD degree in Engineering Geology (with focus on characterization of rock for grouting). In 2013, she became Professor of Engineering Geology (Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg) specialising in hydrogeology and rock engineering. In spring 2018 she left her position at Chalmers and she is now working as a consultant with Golder Associates and as a researcher at the University of Gothenburg. Her present focus is on applied hydrogeology, infrastructure projects (railway) and water management (e.g. grouting of rock). Her research includes both applied hydrogeology and hydromechanics.

Dr Mostafa Sharifzadeh

Dr Mostafa Sharifzadeh is specialized in fundamental and applied geotechnical and geomechanics engineering in resource and civil engineering. He received his B.Sc. in Mining Engineering in 1993, MSc. In Rock Mechanics Engineering in 1996 and PhD in Geotechnical Engineering in 2005. He has over 20 years of experience in construction companies, consulting engineering and academia. He has worked in over 30 mining, civil and energy projects in Iran, Japan, Australia and China using innovative approaches and contributed the outcome to professional development through numerous publications and invited presentations. Dr Sharifzadeh has produced over 300 publications including books, book chapters, refereed journal papers, peer-reviewed conference papers, guidelines and engineering design reports. Ha has supervised over 12 doctoral students and 80 master students research topics. He is a member of the committee of design methodology in International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM), editorial board member of Tunnelling and underground space technology journal (TUST), journal of Tunnelling and underground space Engineering (TUSE), and reviewer for numerous international journals and conferences on geomechanics, tunnelling and mining. Since 2013, he working on geomechanical aspects of deep underground hard rock mining-related research at Western Australian School of Mines (WASM) - Curtin University.

Ju Wang

Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology, Beijing, China

Thamer Yacoub

Thamer Yacoub President Ph.D., 1999 – Civil Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada; M.Sc., 1992 – Civil Engineering, University of Baghdad, Iraq; B.Sc., 1986 – University of Baghdad, Iraq. Professional Engineer, Ontario, Canada. Areas of interest: Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, Numerical Modeling, Slope Stability, Geotechnical Numerical Analysis (Boundary element, Finite element), Settlement Analysis, Groundwater Flows. Thamer is one of our engineers who gives workshops and sales visits.

Dr. Nick Barton

Dr. Nick Barton was educated in the University of London from 1963 to 1970, and has a B.Sc. in civil engineering from King’s College, and a Ph.D. on rock slope stability from Imperial College. He worked for two periods in the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, Oslo, starting in 1971. He was also four years in the USA in TerraTek, now Schlumberger. Since 2000 he has had his own international rock engineering consultancy, registered as Nick Barton & Associates in Oslo. He has consulted on several hundred projects in a total of 38 countries, and has published widely (320 papers, and two text books, one on TBM tunnelling, the other on seismic properties at all scales). He developed the Q-system, which was updated together with Grimstad, and is co-developer of the M-H coupled Barton-Bandis joint behaviour model, coded in UDEC-BB. He has also developed QTBM and more recently Qslope for helping to select maintenance and support-free slope angles for rock cuttings and bench-faces in open pits. He has thirteen international awards including election as Doctor Honoris Causa (Honorary Doctor) in Argentina. He gave the 6th Mueller Lecture of ISRM, in the Beijing congress in 2011. He is a Fellow of the ISRM.

Marina Trevizolli

Civil Engineer with an MSc in Geotechnical Engineering from the Federal University of Paraná. In the past few years She has been developing projects related to slope stability and geotechnical numerical modeling, especially in unsaturated soils. Worked as a geotechnical researcher in highway slopes safety management through probabilistic studies and geological and geotechnical monitoring for risk measurement and also participated in studies related to dam safety at Hydroelectric Power Plants.
She has been involved with the Geotechnical Analysis SoilVision team for the past year as an instrumental in creating awareness around the SoilVision brand and is currently a Product Sales Representative of the Bentley Systems geotechnical solutions for LATAM.

Dr. Philippe Vaskou

After 15 years in the field of dams and power houses as an engineering geologist with Electricité de France (EDF), Philippe VASKOU has been working for 20 years with GEOSTOCK, a company dedicated to underground storage of hydrocarbons. Geologist Expert in Underground Engineering at the Technical Direction of GEOSTOCK, he is in charge of site selections for Clients and definition of preliminary studies for mined caverns. His knowledge of site investigation covers a wide range of geological and geotechnical environments, from sedimentary to metamorphic, plutonic and volcanic rocks, with a huge number of references in Europe and Asia. Linking the geological structure with the geomechanical properties and behaviour of rocks is one of his favourite subjects, such as the practical aspects of site investigations to allow quality data for models, on which he has given several lectures for the ISRM and affiliated societies.

M. El Tani

Mohamed El Tani is a physicist engineer. He has worked successively as a mathematics assistant at EPFL and UNIL, researcher at LMRS and consulting engineer at Lombardi SA. Currently, he is a scientific consultant, partner manager at AAbuildings and chairman of LAUS. He was involved in the development of numerical codes that were used in tunnel and dam projects: e.g. Alp transit tunnel, Albigna dam and the stress-relief cuts of Pian-Telessio dam. Then, he moved toward analytical modeling to find benchmark solutions to test numerical codes. He has developed analytic models for water-tunnel interaction, shell deformation and buckling, and rock fractures grouting that were used in many studies: e.g. Gibraltar tunnel, Laguna Neutrino Cavern, Theun-Hinboum penstock and Rudbar PSPP.

Dr. Antonio Samaniego

Dr. Antonio Samaniego is the Founder Associate and Director of SVS Ingenieros S.A.C. In SVS, Dr. Samaniego is responsible for all mining and geotechnical studies carried out by the company, in mining mainly in those aspects related to mine design, mine planning and mine valuation. In 1976 he was appointed, first assistant then associate professor and at present is Principal Lecturer on Rock Mechanics at the Catholic University of Peru. He has worked in over 50 civil engineering and mining projects in Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, mainly on aspects related to mine design and geotechnical on rock and soils mechanics problems. Dr. Samaniego has published more than 40 technical papers related to rock engineering in mine design. Dr. Samaniego is a member of the ISRM through the Sociedad Peruana de Geoingenieria (the ISRM NG PERU), being the President of its National Committee. He is also a member of the Inst. of Mining and Metallurgy UK, Society of Mining Engineers SME and Deputy President of the Instituto de Ingenieros de Minas del Peru. He obtained a BSc degree in Civil Engineering at the Catholic University of Peru in 1972 and a BSc in Mining Engineering at University College Cardiff in 1976. He then obtained an MSc degree in Rock Mechanics in 1981, followed by a PhD degree in Rock Mechanics in 1984 at the University of London, Imperial College, Royal School of Mines (UK).

Eda Freitas de Quadros

(ex officio), ISRM President

Prof. John Cosgrove

Prof. John Cosgrove  is a Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Imperial College London, UK. He won the Paul Fourmarier Gold Medal, awarded by the Royal Academy of Belgium in 2005 for work on fluid induced failure and has received awards for excellence in teaching from Imperial College. He was responsible for the Masters course in Structural Geology and Rock Mechanics for many years. His co-authored book (Price N.J. & Cosgrove J.W. 1990 “Analysis of Geological Structures”) has been used worldwide. He has worked extensively in consulting activities for rock mechanics and rock engineering projects, and has produced two books which he co-authored with John Hudson, (Cosgrove J. W. & Hudson J. A. 2017 “Structural Geology and Rock Engineering” and Hudson J. A. & Cosgrove J. W. 2019 “Understanding building stones and stone buildings”), the former dealing with the fundamental links between the Rock Engineering and Structural Geology.

J. Lopez Molina

Jorge Lopez-Molina has been working for 14 years in rock engineering and ground improvement for civil, mining and energy infrastructure projects in Mexico and South America. His main areas of interest are the characterization of porous and naturally fractured media through empirical, experimental, numerical and machine learning techniques; as well as the design, supervision and evaluation of rock grouting works. Currently he is member of the Rock Mechanics and Grouting Division of the Federal Electricity Commission, Mexico, and Rock Mechanics Professor in graduate programs of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Autonomous University of Puebla.

Requirements:
Computer with PowerPoint
Slide projector

Prof. Xia-Ting Feng

Prof. Xia-Ting Feng graduated in 1986 from the Northeast University of Technology and obtained his PhD in 1992 at the Northeastern University, China. He was then appointed and acted as Lecturer, Associate Professor and Professor at the same university. In 1998, he was admitted by the Hundred Talents Programme to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Subsequently, he joined CAS’s Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics at Wuhan, China. In 2003, he obtained the support of the China National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists; in 2010, he became a Chair Professor of the Cheung Kong Scholars’ Programme, Ministry of Education, China; and, in 2009, he was elected as President of the International Society for Rock Mechanics for the period 2011–2015. In 2012, Professor Feng became the President of the Chinese Society for Rock Mechanics and Engineering. In 2018, he was elected as the President of Federation of International Geo-engineering Societies. Now, he is Vice-President of Northeastern University, China since 2017. He has made original contributions to the subject of ‘intelligent rock mechanics’ and his methods have been applied to large rock engineering projects in China and other countries.

Chunliang Zhang

GRS, Germany

T. Carter

Dr. Carter is a Geological Engineering Consultant at TGC-GeoSolutions, Oakville, Canada. Dr. Carter has been involved with grouting since the 1970's, initially in the UK with Binnies' on curtain grouting for large dams, including several Turn-of-the-Century masonry dams and early use of TAM approaches. During the early 1980's, with Golder Associates, he supervised investigations and grouting for 15 dams in the Elliot Lake area of Canada, where many of the electronic monitoring techniques, now commonplace, were pioneered. In the late 1990's he was responsible for investigation and geological oversight for curtain grouting the now nearly 300m high Antamina Dam in Peru, where initial use of the modified GIN approach, now termed Aperture Controlled Grouting (ACG) was first formulated. Since then, he has been involved in a review capacity for several difficult grouting projects. He has published half a dozen significant papers on rock grouting and over 50 papers and a book on other engineering geological topics pertinent to civil and mining engineering.

Gilles Armand

ANDRA, France

Z Zhao

Dr Zhao’s research focus is on the numerical modelling in rock mechanics, especially in the area of development of discontinuous deformation analysis, rock dynamics, coupled hydro-geological system modelling, rock bolt modelling. Dr Zhao is a member of the editorial board of: Int. J. of Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology and Int. J. of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. He is the President of the Society for Rock Mechanics & Engineering Geology Singapore since March 2013. His current projects include grouting parameter estimation using data mining and LNG underground storage - numerical modelling. Dr Thao is director, of Nanyang Centre of Underground Space (NCUS) and associated Chair (research) at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Nanyang Technology University (NTU), Singapore.

Xiangling Li

EURIDICE，Belgium

H. Krenn

Harald Krenn is geotechnical engineer with over 15 years experience in acquisition, execution and management of ground engineering works such as D-Wall, Piling, Jet grouting and Grouting works. Since graduation of university he spends most of his professional years in the UK, Canada and various other countries in Europe and worldwide. His expertise and deep knowledge have grown through participation on many milestone projects such as Semmering base tunnel, Niagara tunnelling project, Brenner base tunnel and South East collector. He is responsible for the acquisition and execution of large ground engineering projects within the Trevi Group in Europe.

Rolf Christiansson

SKB, Sweden

H. Stille

Håkan Stille is emeritus Professor in Soil and Rock Mechanics, member of ISRM, ISSMFE and IVA. He has worked as a consulting geotechnical engineer at Hagconsult AB, head of the Soil and Rock Mechanical group of Skanska Technique, vice president of Skanska Technique and professor in Soil and Rock mechanics at KTH and is currently an independent consultant in Geotechnical Engineering. He was awarded by, Sigge Thernwall, Atlas Copco, Swedish Soc. Civil and Structures Eng. and delivered the Laurits Bjerrum Lecture and Sir Muir Wood lecture. He is Vice chairmen of the Swedish Commission of implementation of Eurocode 7: Geotechncial design, member of the Swedish Group for geotechnical design and Evaluation Group/Task Group of the European Committee for Standardization. He authored over 100 papers and publications to professional journals, conferences and seminars, co-authored the books Rock Engineering, Design of anchored sheet pile walls and Cement grouting of fractured rock. He is responsible for the geotechnical design or member of the board of experts for infrastructure projects in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Hong Kong, Australia, China, India, Nepal, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Panama, Switzerland, Iran and Dominican Republic and USA.

Jianfu Shao

USTL, France